A Conversation With Neale Donald Walsch On Evolving The Soul

Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch is one of those books that many of us would include on their list of must-read favorite spiritual books. It’s one of those books that continues to be given as a gift, making it widely disseminated and celebrated around the world.  The incredible popularity led to Conversations with God being on the New York Times Best Seller List for over two-and-a-half years! In fact, seven of Neale’s books have been on the NYT Bestseller list. 

Transcript

See, Sometimes people misunderstand me. They say, Oh, I'm supposed to just sit back and accept everything that's happening to me with a big smile on my face. That's not what I'm saying. It simply means not doing so from a place of negative energy. That's what it means. Seeing the perfection means you don't do what you do out of anger or upset. You do what you do out of love. Hello, Beautiful souls and welcome to the Soul Collective podcast. The Soul Collective is a place where we navigate this human experience and raise our planetary frequency collectively. Together we heal, Grow, Expand, And activate our own inner light by alchemizing programming to look outside of ourselves, Entering the deep reservoir of wisdom that resides within. I'm Emily Gosh Harris, Intuitive guide and your host for this soul expansive journey. Each week we'll explore topics centered around spirituality, Mysticism and healing, Connecting with renowned thought leaders and providing actionable insights and tools to help transcend self-limiting beliefs, Raise your personal vibration and to shine bright. Thanks for spending time with me today. Now let the Collective Share begin. Welcome back to the Soul Collective podcast. It is my deep honor to introduce today's guest. He is a legend and someone who I wanted to connect with since the inception of this podcast. Neil Donald Walsh has written 39 books on spirituality. His Conversations with God series of books has been translated into 37 languages, Touching millions of people around the world. It is an absolute pleasure to connect with you today, Neil. Welcome to the Soul Collective podcast. Well, Those are very kind words to say, Emily. Thank you for inviting me. It's lovely to be here with you. How may I serve the moment? I want to ask you first, What right now is setting your soul on fire? Looking at you on my computer screen. But short of that, My latest writing, Which is a book called The God Solution. And it's really setting me on fire because I feel that it's a concise, Very focused, Denouement. It's a culmination of the Conversations with God body of work. Probably the last book, Full-length book I'll ever write. I may write a little pamphlet now and then or an article for a website here and there. But I don't think that there are any more full-length books that I'll produce. It's a very short book. It's a full-length book, But relatively short. A small little book. But that's what's really setting me on fire. And for good reason, Emily, Without getting into a big speech here, But because I consider that it contains a real solution to the problems that our species is facing today. So that's what's setting me on fire. Yeah. And I want to get into that book because you're right. There is so much wisdom contained in it. And you've been so prolific in your writing. And I'm just curious for you, Leading up to that moment when you first had that faded conversation with God, I'm wondering what was happening in your life? What was taking place in the spring of 1992? Gosh, Everything was going wrong, Emily. In most people's lives and in my own life prior to that, It might have been one thing or the other. Maybe my work wasn't going as well as I would like, But my relationship and my health and the other aspects of my life were going along pretty well. Or perhaps it was a relationship challenge, But my work was going pretty well. In this particular moment of my life, Emily, Everything that could fall apart was falling apart. I was having, In fact, Major relationship challenges and difficulties. And my relationship was coming to an end, Sadly, As well as I was let go from my work. I was actually downsized and released from my job. So my career had come to a dead end. And then, On top of everything else, In the same period of time, In that same two-month period, I had a car accident. An older gentleman actually crashed right into my car. And I've suffered a broken neck in that car accident. And it took the insurance company almost two years to come to a settlement with me. And because they were negotiating and trying to get me to accept a smaller amount and a smaller amount, Because the police report clearly indicated that it was the other driver's fault, He actually made a bad turn in front of me. But that didn't seem to matter. In the overall scheme of things, I had to wait. But I couldn't work. This was the interesting thing. Because I had a broken neck, I was out of work, Even if I wanted to work, Besides the fact that I had been released anyway from my job. So here I am now, Relationship ending, No work. I'm released from and downsized. And I'm sitting there with a broken neck. I'm wearing what's called a Philadelphia collar, Which is a plastic device that goes under your chin and to your body, And it holds your head up. So there I was, Really in the worst moment of my life. But everything that could go wrong was going wrong at the same time. So I was living in a little cottage behind someone's house, What they call a grandmother cottage, Or mother-in-law cottage, And behind a wealthy family's home that I was renting for very little money, Relatively speaking. But I woke up in the middle of the night after all this had happened, Emily, And I called out to God. Because it was 4. 30 in the morning, And I was just lying there. And I thought, OK, What is it that I'm doing wrong here? I'm going to try to be a nice person. I've obeyed most of the rules. I haven't broken any major ones. What? What? What? What does it take to make life work? And I was so furious. I couldn't sleep. So I just threw the covers back and went out to the couch in my little living room. It was a very small little cottage. I was sitting there on the couch, And there was a pad of paper on the coffee table, A yellow legal pad. And for reasons I'll never understand, I just had this idea. I wanted to write out my anger. So I was almost having an angry letter to God. And I recall the moment vividly. I was writing so deep, So pressing so hard, That if you looked three pages beneath it, You could still feel the impression of the words that I was writing when you're really angry. And I wrote, What does it take to make life work? What have I done to deserve a life of such continuing struggle? I can recall Emily sitting there on that couch at 4th morning in the morning, Crying out and putting it on paper. Give me the rules. Somebody give me the rule book. I'll play. I promise I'll play. Just give me the rule book. How does it go? And after you tell me the rules, Don't change them. Because it felt to me like the rules of life were changing every time I turned around. And so there I sat on the couch stewing in my own juice, Furious with life, Furious with God, Furious with myself for not being able to figure things out. I'm about 50 years old at this point, 49 years old, Just a few months before my 50th birthday, Which should have been a time to celebrate a landmark birthday in my life, Half a century on the planet. And here I was sitting there with no income, No job, No relationship, Everything falling apart. And that's when I heard or thought I heard a voice over my right shoulder. Neil, Do you really want answers to all of these questions? Or are you just venting? Of course, I turned around and I thought, Who got in here? It's 4. 20 in the morning. But of course, There was no one there. And then my mind really went nuts. I thought, Great. Now I'm actually losing my mind on top of everything else. Thank you very much. But I remember answering as if there was someone there. I just, In my own mind, I was thinking, Yeah, I'm venting. Yeah, Yeah. If you've got some answers, Sure would like to know what they are. I sure as hell like to know what they are. And I heard a voice in my head then. It moved from outside into my mind. It was like the sound of my own thoughts, A voiceless voice when we listen to our own thoughts. But the voice said, You are sure as hell. But wouldn't it be better to be sure as heaven? I said, What's that supposed to mean? My mind is thinking, What's that about? And I began receiving answers to the questions that I had written down to the questions that I had asked. And they were answers that were, Frankly, Astonishing. I wrote them all down. And I never intended to write a book, By the way. It was never even anywhere in my mind. I was just having a process that I would call journaling, Personal journaling process, A diary, If you please, Just getting my thoughts out on paper. But here were these ideas coming to me that I had never had before. Really way out there kinds of ideas about life, About God, About myself. And so I continued that dialogue for several hours that day. Had nowhere to go. I had no job. Didn't matter. But before I turned around, It was like 11 o'clock in the morning. I'd been up since 4. 30 doing this back and forth. Because when I would get answers, The answers that I got, Of course, Brought up other questions for me. So I always said, Well, Yeah, Well, What about this? Yeah, Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What about that? And I had what I call the yeah buts. Yeah, But what about, Wait a minute, Wait a minute, Yeah, But wait a minute. How about this? How about that? And before I knew it, I was caught up in an on paper dialogue, If you will, A conversation. And I thought, This is like having a conversation with God. Because I was getting answers that I never dreamt of before in my life. In fact, Answers that not only that I never dreamt of, But Emily answers that violated everything I imagined to be true at some level. And everything that I had been told since I was a child about life. To give you one striking example, I was told there's no such thing as the 10 commandments. I remember thinking that because I was saying to God, Hey, I'm obeying the commandments. I haven't been a huge violator of the 10 commandments. Why isn't my life working? And the answer I got was, Oh, I see. You think there are commandments. Because you were not Catholic, Right? Yeah, I was raised a Catholic, Yes. And I came this far away from actually joining the seminary and going to a seminary to become a priest. I wanted to be a priest. That's before I saw my first Playboy Center photo, But that's a whole other story. But in any event, Right there I was asking God, What do you mean there's no such thing as the 10 commandments? And she said, Who would I commend? You're all me. We're all one. There's nobody who's separate from me. Well, Would the right hand slap the left? Who would I command and who would I punish if that which I'm commanding didn't keep my commandments? So God said to me, I see you have an entirely fictitious notion of who I am and what I demand and what I want and what I request and what I require. And that started, Emily, An ongoing conversation. Every morning for months, I would awaken around 4. 20 or so in the morning, Almost the same time every day. I would just sit up in bed and I thought, I got to continue this dialogue. So I'd go out into the living room, Pick up my yellow legal pad. Pretty soon I had to go to the store with the little money I had and buy more yellow legal pads. And I filled up, Honestly, Six or eight yellow legal pads full of handwritten questions and answers, Questions and answers. And again, Thinking it was a very personal, Private process, Just personal journaling. But then Emily, In the middle of this experience, I was given this thought and I watched myself write the words, You will make of this one day a book and it would be accessed by many people. And I thought at that point, Now I got you, Now I got you. Because everything I've been hearing in my mind before that moment was conceptual in nature. It could be, Could not be, Who would know? Mostly conceptual and no way to measure whether it was right or wrong. Just ideas that I'd never heard of before. But now here was a statement that I could measure the outcome. I mean, It was a direct flat statement. You will make of this one day a book. It will be accessed by many people. And I thought, We'll see about that. And I actually decided to send what I had written on my yellow legal pad to a publisher, To several small little publishers, Four or five, Just to see what would happen because I thought nobody's gonna publish this conversation I'm having in my mind. I mean, I could just imagine some publisher stepping out to the workroom floor and saying to his editors, Hold the presses, Hold the presses. We got a guy here who's talking to God. It's not gonna happen. Of course it's not gonna happen. But in fact it did. In fact, One of those small publishers found the information fascinating and they decided to put a book out and they called it what I called it, Conversations with God. And something interesting, It's sold like hotcakes. Yeah, Millions and millions of copies. Millions of copies. Incredible. And how many weeks is on the New York Times bestseller list? Gosh, I don't know, Two and a half years or something. Yeah. I lost track, But it was on the New York Times and for a nonfiction book, Fiction books often make the bestseller list, But nonfiction books don't make a bestseller list for multiple weeks. This was on the bestseller list for a couple of years, More than two years, Continually week after week. Why do you think it was so widely popular? Because I think that the human race is losing patience with itself. And I think that we thought, No, There's gotta be something that we don't understand. They saw me as James Thurber's everyman. There was a wonderful playwright named James Thurber and he created a play about what he called everyman. And I think that this character in the play had the thoughts that all of us have. And I think that people saw me as everyman. They saw me as they would pass the book on to friends who would pass the book on to other friends. Husbands were sharing the books with wives. Wives were sharing the books with their family. The book was a huge hand to hand pass-on-able book because people said in my mail, They said, You're asking the questions I've always asked all my life. The same kinds of questions. So I think people related to it and that's why it became such an incredible bestseller. Yeah. And I'm so curious about that. And it's true because you have experienced such incredible things throughout the course of your life. And I feel like almost like your soul came in to experience a multitude of different experiences, Perhaps so you could relate so well or others could relate to you. I mean, For example, A broken neck, Homelessness, The end of relationships. Those are things that people can relate to on some level of the human struggle that we all go through, Right? Yeah, You know, And ever, Homelessness is not something that ever occurred could happen in my life. I have a, Forgive me, But I'm sorry, But I had to talk this way, But I have a lot of talent, A lot of ability, A lot of intelligence. I never went to college, But I seemed to be getting by with what I learned in high school. And I thought I would never run into a time when I couldn't at least make enough living to support myself. But here I was, And I couldn't work. I was out of work waiting for the, A little bit of insurance money. And I had no income. I finally couldn't pay the rent, Even on that small little, Small little cottage that I was renting, As inexpensive as it was. And I wound up living on the sidewalk, Literally living on the street. And then I found a homeless park that I could just, You know, With a few other guys hanging out there. And I wound up living in that homeless park for two weeks shy of one year, A year on the sidewalk with my hand out to people asking, Could you just offer anything? Honestly, A few nickels, A quarter, A half dollar. If I got enough from six or eight people, I could buy a bag of French fries and I could eat today. And I was down to that level of hoping I could gather enough money by baking on the streets so that I could eat that day. And some days I didn't make it. Some days I didn't get enough money to buy a bag of French fries. So it was an interesting way to live and an interesting way to learn about humanity. Try it sometime, Walk the streets and leave your house on Friday afternoon. Don't come back to them. Just do it for a weekend. Forget about doing it for a year. Just doing it for a weekend. Don't wash your hair. Wash it. Don't wash your hair for about a week and a half. Don't wash your body for about 10 days. Let yourself smell the way bodies smell when they haven't been bathed for a few days. Don't change your clothes for a few days. Then go outside. Then walk the streets for about four days from Friday to Monday, Just for one weekend as an experiment. And walk up to people looking the way you look, Smelling the way you smell, And ask them with your hand out, Could you maybe offer me just a little, Anything, The loose change in your pocket, Anything I haven't eaten since last night, Smells three o'clock in the afternoon. And see how you do. And see how you do. And when you come back home on Monday evening, And go back to your regular way of living, And when you go back on the sidewalk as a regular person, Going to your car or going to the bank or going shopping or going to the post office, And you pass one of those people on the street, Think to yourself, Do I have anything? Anything I could share with this person? A dollar a day? A dollar a bill, Maybe? Actually folding money? Empathy comes to mind as like one of the biggest takeaways from that experience is just learning about empathy and human compassion. Believe me, Believe me. And I make sure it's easy for me to say. People say, Well, It's easy for you to say, Because now you've made a lot of money with your books, But whether or not I always carry a few spare five dollar bills in my pocket, I always have a few in the dashboard of my car. So when I come up to one of those corners and there's a man standing on the corner with a cardboard sign, Will work for food, Or a cardboard sign that says anything helps, Don't you think I roll that car window down and hand a fiver or a couple of fives to that person who can't believe that somebody actually gave him two five dollar bills. Incredible. I mean, That's one of the things that I love about you is that you're willing to have conversations that are challenging and that are important for humanity to talk about. What are some of those conversations like we're having right now, Which is really like understanding that we're all souls in this human experience. What are some of the conversations that you believe that we need to be having to advance our species? Well, I think, You know, And I start my latest book with one of those kinds of questions. And the question I wrote at the beginning of my latest book is, What's the point of having a God? And what is the point of even having a God? Not even does God exist? Because let's just pretend that God does exist. Who cares? The world's a mess. And it's been a mess for a long time. It isn't just a bad phase we're going through now. We've had a mess of some sort or another on this planet for thousands and thousands of years. There's been violence, A war going on in this planet for 92% of human history. Check it out. I'm not making this stuff up. So the question I think we need to ask is, Wait a minute, Wait a minute. Is it possible, Just possible that there's something I don't fully understand here about God, About life, About myself? The understanding of which would change everything. Is it possible that there's more to know on this subject? And when I ask that question, Many people say, Not all people, But many people say, Oh, Neil, Relax. It's all there. No, No, No, We have the answers. Read the book. It's there in the book. In the good book, I say, Oh, Which good book? Oh, You must be talking about the Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita or the Book of Mormon or the Talmud. Or they say, You know what book I'm talking about. I'm talking about the Bible. Oh, I see, It's all in the Bible, Which turns out to be only one of 376 Holy scriptures on the planet right now. So I look at that person and I say, I see, How many religions do you think there are on the planet? Oh, Let me help you. If the number is 4, 327, There are 4, 000 known organized religions on the planet as we are speaking, Each with their own Holy scripture, Their own set of teachings, Their own set of understandings. Is it possible? Is it possible that we're just a bit confused here? Because if there really is a higher power, Oh, And by the way, Here's what's interesting, Talking about statistics. Anthropologists have done surveys over the past five or 10 years, Because we've become deeply interested in this subject. Anthropologists have gone from culture to culture, Not just in one nation or a couple of nations, Not just in the so-called Western nations, But all over the world to remote villages and to highly civilized cities. And they've asked the same question. Do you believe in a higher power? And guess what? Eight out of 10 people say they agree that there is a controlling power, Some kind of higher power. We simply can't agree on any of the details. We can't agree on who it is, What it is, What it wants, What it demands, What it requires, What it does if we don't meet its demands, Nor can we even figure out how to use that higher power in a way that would create solutions to nine-tenths of the human made problems on this planet. That's why I wrote The God Solution. So if you are chief operating officer of the universe, What would you help people to understand about that higher power? I would help people to understand that we have misunderstood, We have misunderstood what this higher power is and that that doesn't mean we can't begin to understand it now. I would use my position as chief operating officer of the universe or of the world to say, Hey, Let's take another look at this. Even if we only look at it hypothetically, Even if we don't necessarily immediately accept or embrace new thoughts about this old idea we have called God, Can we at least be hypothetically interested enough to just investigate? Is it possible that we don't have it all right? Could we have been simply either mistaken about some of our ideas or maybe not even mistaken, Just incomplete, That we don't have all the data yet? And then I would offer some ideas of my own, Ideas that have been given to me in my conversations with God with regard to those questions. And the main question would be, What is this thing called God? How would you define it? How do you define it? I have a two word definition and in The God Solution, I offer that two word definition, But it's a revolutionary definition. I mean, Theologically revolutionary because not a single religion on the face of the earth embraces this definition. I have said that, And I have been told that the two word definition of God is pure love. Now what's interesting Emily, Is that people in my lectures, When I go to give a little presentation, Will say, Oh boy, This is the new revolutionary idea. I thought you came here to give us a new thought about all this. This is the ancient, The oldest idea in the universe. God is love? Of course God is love. Nobody would disagree with that. Everyone says God is love. I say, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa, Relax, Relax. I didn't say God is love. That's not what I said. What I said is that God is pure love. I used two words, Not one. And then the most belligerent in my audiences will say, Yeah, Well, What's the difference? And then I tell them the difference. That pure love as opposed to human love, As opposed to how we use the word love, Pure love needs, Wants, Requires, Hopes for, And demands nothing in return. Zero, Nothing in return, Because it needs nothing to begin with. Now, The question becomes, Can we be daring enough as a civilization to believe in a God who requires and demands nothing in return? Why is that important? Because some people might say, Okay, Real hypothetically interesting question, But why is that important? It's important because human behaviors are based upon the model we have of our deity. Our current model, That is the teaching of virtually every one of the world's major religions and most of the minor ones, The current model we have of God is that God is judgmental, Condemning and punishing. If we don't meet God's requirements and the requirements are not easy to meet. I mean, Sometimes you simply make a mistake and what can I say? You belong to the wrong religion or you were raised in the wrong family that belonged to the wrong religion. And so it doesn't matter how gentle you are as a person, How kind you are, How compassionate you are, How caring you are, How generous you are, How loving you are, It doesn't matter. I'm sorry, But you were just raised in the wrong religion or you gravitated to the wrong theology. What can I tell you? Dem's the rules. So because you belong to the wrong religion, No matter how sweet and gentle and kind and forgiving and compassionate you are, You're going to hell and you will suffer everlasting damnation and torture in the fires of hell because you didn't belong to the right religion. And there really is, Of course, Only one right religion. Yes, I know, I know. There are 4, 000 religions on the face of the earth, But only one of them is right. And you better guess right. You better guess which one it is. Because if you don't, Says God, I will punish you with everlasting damnation. You will be sorry, I promise you. And this is the God we believe in. And because this is how we imagine God to behave with us, This is how we've decided to behave with others. You will either do things my way, Or I will judge, Condemn, And punish you, Which has created a world in which we have actual leaders of countries, Not just a few people on the street, But people who are running the country, Saying things to each other across the ocean. My missiles are bigger than your missiles. You better watch out because I'll send my missiles over and blow you to bits. You better be careful because I'm gonna be just as judgmental and punishing as God. What if, And we, By the way, We use the same ethic in our political constructions. We have now confused leadership with bullying and with insulting. You know, God forbid that one of our candidates might have big ears. Maybe he was just born with ears a little bit bigger than the normal person. We can insult him and tell him about his big ears, And we can do it on national television to make him feel small. Because that's leadership. Leadership is insulting people with whom we disagree, Or maybe even demonizing them. That's it. Let's demonize those people we disagree with. Let's bully people and tell them either agree with me or I'll get you. You'll be sorry you ever disagreed with me. That's going on right now. That's going on right now on this planet because we are acting like two people. Because we are acting like two-year-olds with each other. And we are basing our behaviors on how we imagine that God behaves with us in terms of God's decision to judge us, Punish us, And condemn us if we don't obey God's rules. Let me just, In case you think I'm being a little bit exaggerated, Emily, I hope you don't run out of time because I've only set aside six hours for this interview. But just to give you a really quick example, And this is a true story for my life, I'm not making this up. When I was 13 years old, I was told by the parish priest who came in to give catechism class once a week in our school, If you miss Mass on Sunday and you don't have a good excuse, Now if you're taking care of a sick parent, Fair enough, Or if you have a job and you have to go to work on Sunday morning, Okay. But if you don't have a good excuse, If you just decide to go play golf, Or play a little bit of softball, A little baseball with the other kids in the neighborhood on Sunday morning, And you deliberately miss Mass, And if you should get hit by a car on the way home, A terrible accident, But you lost your life, You're gonna be spending eternity, Well, Maybe not in hell, Maybe you'll be sent to purgatory, Which is kind of like hell, Only it's not forever. It's a place where your sins are burned off of your soul until you're purified enough to return to God in heaven. So if you don't wanna go to purgatory or risk going to hell, Don't miss Mass this Sunday. We wonder why fear is so pervasive. Wow, What a great motivation to fall in love with God. Let's use fear. There's a good idea, Why didn't I think of that? So we've created, And by the way, You think I'm making this part up as well? No, No, People say it's a virtue to be what? A God-fearing man. You should be a God-fearing person. You can tell what a good person Neil is. He's a God-fearing person. What? How about a God-loving person? So we have a long way to go, Emily, A long way to go. But if we apply the God solution, We can solve the God dilemma. Yeah, I wanna ask you about that. From your experience, What do you believe the purpose of life to be? And especially if there are no expectations placed on us, What are we all here for? First of all, The question that precedes that is, Who are we? What is my purpose? Who are we? What is my true identity? Before I can tell you what I think we're here for, Let's ask ourselves the question that very few people asked themselves in their lifetime. Who am I? I mean, At my basis, Who really am I? Am I fundamentally a physical entity? No different from a bird in the sky or a fish in the sea? Maybe more complex, Fair enough. Perhaps more sophisticated life form, And I'm a physical entity. I'm born, I live my life, I die, And that's the beginning and the end of it. Or is it possible, Just hypothetically possible, That I am more than that? Is it possible that I'm actually a spiritual entity having a physical experience? Is it possible that this is not who I am and this is not who I am, That my body and my mind are simply tools, Pieces of equipment, If you please, That who I really am uses in order to achieve what it came into the physical world to achieve, Which leads to your second question. What are we here for? I have come to understand, Based on my conversations with God, That we are here to complete the soul's agenda, The soul's agenda is, In a single word, Evolution, Or to make it a little bit more sophisticated, To announce and declare, To express and fulfill, To become and to experience our true identity. And what is our true identity? Now it gets really esoteric and powerful. What if it turns out that we are actually each of us, Every sentient being in the cosmos? What if it turns out that we are, Each of us, A singularization of the singularity, An individuation of God, An individual expression of the divine? Wouldn't it be interesting if that's who we actually were? And if life is about bringing us the experience of that, Because in the physical realm, We have a contextual field that includes the opposite of all that we are. That's not true in the metaphysical realm. I mean, In heaven, There's nothing but love, Here and now, Always. There's not even time. But this planet, There are things like up and down, Left and right, Here and there, Before and after, Big and small, Fast and slow, Black and white, Good and evil, Male and female, Created He them, All of these contrasting elements that allow us to experience who we are, Because in the absence, In the absence of these contrasting elements, We can't experience who we really are. We can know who we are conceptually, But we can't know who we are experientially. To use a simple example, Let's just say, I am the light. I conceive of myself, I am the light. What if I wanna know myself as the light? Not just think that I might be, But experience it. Well, God said to me in conversations with God, Well, If you want to experience yourself as the light, You're gonna have to create the darkness. Yeah. Because without the darkness, You can't be the light. But here's what you have missed. If you create the darkness, Which is, By the way, What we've been doing on this planet for the past several hundred thousand years, Thank you very much. But if after you create the darkness, Out of your own free will, You then condemn what you've created, Then you will simply misuse the gift that life has given you an opportunity to use. That's why every great spiritual teacher, Not just one, But virtually all the spiritual teachers have said, Each in their own way, Judge not and neither condemn. And raise not your fist to heaven and curse the darkness not, But be a light unto the darkness that you might know who you really are. And that all those whose lives you touch might know who they really are as well. That's what we're doing here. But you know what, My dear Emily? It's gonna take a few minutes. Emily, It's gonna take an enormous shift in our behavior pattern. We're gonna have to do things that we have not figured out how to do because we think we're acting like God when we judge, Condemn, And punish our enemies, Even though we've been told, Love, Love, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you and do good to those who would do you harm. We've been told this. It's interesting because you bring up the topic of evolution and it just seems like oftentimes suffering can be such a catalyst to help us evolve. And I know it doesn't have to be that way, But what are some ways that you think that we can continue the soul's mission to evolve and express our highest form without that suffering? Suffering and pain are not the same thing. If you would ask me how can we do it without pain, I probably would have said, I don't think there is a way to do it without pain, Emotional pain or physical pain or both. But can we do it without suffering? Oh yeah, Sure. Because pain and suffering are not the same thing. And how do we eliminate suffering from the experience of pain? Suffering is a decision you make in your mind that says, What's going on, This pain should not be happening. But if we can agree that it's okay for this pain to be occurring, Then we no longer suffer from the pain. We experienced the pain, But we don't call it bad. It might even be bad pain, But it's not a bad thing that it's happening. Now to understand this completely, All you have to do is be in the room when a woman is giving birth. And I've been blessed to do that. I have nine children and I've been blessed to be in the room at the birth of every one of them. When you watch, It's an experience only a woman can have of course, But when you watch a woman give birth, You see a human being in pain. It might even be bad pain, But it's not unwelcome pain in the sense that that angel lying there understands, I am bringing into this world new life. It's a beautiful example. And I will experience whatever pain it takes. Nothing will stop me from having this child. So pain and suffering are not the same thing. And what could cause us therefore not to suffer from the painful experiences of life, Emotional or physical, And I've had both in my life and we all have had both in all of our lives, Is embracing and accepting the invitation we've been given in Conversations with God, Book One, To put it in three words, See the perfection. See the perfection. I see that this is perfect in the sense that it arising in my life is giving me the opportunity to announce and declare, Express and fulfill, Become and demonstrate who I really am. And when we see that, Suddenly the suffering evaporates. An interesting experience in my life, Emily, I've talked to many, Many people, I've been giving lectures now for 25 years all across the country, All across the world, Actually, All over the planet. And I asked my audience this, An interesting question. How many of you have experienced what you thought when you were in the world? And I asked my audience this, How many of you have experienced what you thought when you were experiencing it was one of the worst things that could ever happen to you? Maybe it was the breakup of a relationship or the loss of a job or the loss of your house or the loss of a loved one, Or just the worst thing that could ever happen. How many of you have ever experienced what you would say at that time was the worst that could ever happen, Only to find out a few weeks, A few months, Or even a few weeks or even a few years later that it was one of the best things that ever happened to you? How many of you have ever had that experience? And Emily, 98% of the hands go up. And then I tell them something interesting. The spiritual master is the person who understands this ahead of time, Not two years later, But in the moment of the occurrence. Yeah, I think that's so powerful. And sometimes for feeling like I want to raise my vibration or I'm on this path and tough things come up, It can be like, Oh wow, I've really, Not where I thought I was, Or this is an ominous sign for me, But I think it's such an important reminder that pain, Like you said, Happens to everybody. There are situations and it is really all of us. It's all perspective of how we look at those events, Right? And that does mean we don't have to try to change them. See, Sometimes people misunderstand me. They say, Oh, I'm supposed to just sit back and accept everything that's happening to me with a big smile on my face. That's not what I'm saying. If there's enough pain, We may want to do what we can to change what's causing the pain. So seeing the perfection does not mean failing to attempt to create a change where you think that a change would be appropriate. It simply means not doing so from a place of negative energy. That's what it means. Seeing the perfection means you don't do what you do out of anger or upset. You do what you do out of love. They asked Mother Teresa a few years ago, I remember there was a marvelous story in the news about four or five years ago. Somebody asked Mother Teresa if she'd be willing to join a protest movement to protest war. Could she march with them in their protest march against war? She said, No. And they said, But Mother Teresa, I thought you were against war. Surely you're against war. Surely you'll join a war protest. And Mother Teresa said, You don't understand. I'm not against anything. It's not what I'm against. It's what I'm for. I'm for peace. If you want me to join a demonstration for peace, I'll be there. But if you want me to join a demonstration against war, Because I don't announce that I'm against anything. I only announce what I'm for, What I'm in favor of. Conversations with God put it in its own way. In conversations with God, It said, What you resist persists. Yet what you look at with love disappears. That is, It ceases to have its illusory form, And we can finally put changes into place from a space of love. And those are the changes that last forever. What drives you? I'm just so curious. I mean- I have a Honda. I have a blue Honda. That's what drives me. I'm sorry, I misunderstood the question. Well, That is great to know too, But also just curious. I mean, You impacted billions of people. I mean, Very few people could say that, Right? And you could easily stop writing or stop lecturing, But yet you do. What inspires you to continue to share in the way that you do? An idea that I hold, That our species is just a few short steps away from creating life on this planet as the paradise it was always meant to be. So I am driven by a desire to do whatever I can to assist our species in generating that outcome. I love Helen Keller on this topic. Helen Keller said, I'm only one person. There may not be all that I can do, But there's something that I can do. And I refuse to do nothing. So do what you can do. So I was very inspired by that idea from Helen Keller when I was a young man. And I thought, Ah, And now what drives me is the good feeling I get when I do what I can do. It feels wonderful to know that I didn't just sit by and watch the passing parade, Watch humanity march itself right into the box canyon. There's no way to get back out. No, As I say to my friends in my audiences who I give a talk someplace, Don't stand in the sidelines and watch the passing parade. And people will say, Yeah, Yeah, Join the parade. I say, No, No, Don't join the parade. Be in front of the parade. Lead the parade. Be a spiritual leader. Oh, But you have to understand what spiritual leaders do. A spiritual leader is not someone who says, Follow me. A spiritual leader is one who says, I'll go first. I'll go first. That's what drives me. The joy of being in the parade. The joy I get from being able to say, I'll go first. Cause I get to feel good about me. And that's okay. I'm 77 years old. And finally at the age of 50, I began to feel that my thoughts about myself when I was seven were probably right. Wow, I was just as special as I thought I was when I was seven. Boy, Oh boy, Oh boy. And all the ideas I had about life when I was seven are also true. That everybody else is nifty. Everybody else is wonderful. We can all have fun. We can all love each other. And our differences do not have to create divisions. Our contrasts do not have to create conflicts. Our variance does not have to create violence. We are all one. There's only one of us. I love that so much. As many different flowers as there are in the garden, There's only one garden. I love that so much. And it's so inspiring. And I feel like there's so many of us out there that want to make a difference, That want to get involved. And sometimes it can feel overwhelming as to where to get started. Or there can be fear that gets in the way of, Oh, How do I lead the parade, As you say? What's the fear though? I'm just kind of curious. The fear that gets in the way, What do we think is going to happen? Somebody is going to come along and throw a chocolate cream pie in our face? What are we afraid of? What could possibly happen? Ah, Of course, If we're afraid to do what we call fail, Which is all made up, It's just a mental construction that has no basis in reality. But even if we pretend that it is real, That we could fail, I want to say, Uh-huh. And so what? If you only do for the rest of your life, Every day for the rest of your time on earth, You only do what you were certain you can't fail at, Just don't even get out of bed in the morning. Why bother living? So what happens if you did fail? So what? So what? I've written 39 books. If I have to know ahead of time that every one of them is going to sell enough copies to make a profit for the publisher, I wouldn't put pen to paper for the rest of my life. I'd be afraid. What if I fail? What if I fail? Were you always like that? Yes. I have to say this is true. My father gave me bravery. He used to say to me when I was a young man, When I was a little boy, He'd say, What's the worst that can happen? Son, What's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is you don't try, Which will make damn sure you fail. Otherwise, What's the worst that can happen? And he would say to me, Don't let me ever hear that you didn't try. Powerful. It was extremely powerful. If you had to start again, Is there anything that you would do different in your life? Yeah. Yeah. I would stop being so selfish. Emily, From the time I was 18, 17, 16, Till the time I was 46, 47, I was self-centered and selfish. I was concerned with how I was feeling and what I needed to do or be or have in order to experience happiness. And I was extremely emotionally selfish, The result of which is I went through six marriages. I didn't say six relationships. I said six marriages, As in ring on their finger and then divorce court six times until I finally thought, You know, Cause you know, It was, You have to understand Emily was all their fault. It was always the person across the pillow, The person across the room, Because I'd never experienced that. I was doing wrong. But finally, When the sixth marriage fell apart, I was able to look at myself in the mirror, Thank gosh, And look at myself in the mirror and say, Okay, Do you suppose you might be having a part to play in some of this meal, Wake? And so if I had something to change in my life, I think I would change my thought that I was the only person in the room. And that's what I've done in my seventh marriage. I met this extraordinary human being who met me when I was quite an old man. I mean, Relatively speaking, I was 63 years old. And I used to say that, Sing that Beatles song to her. Will you love me when I'm 64? Because she understand Emily, She was 30 years old. She was 30 years younger, 30 years younger than me. It was not an idle question. Will you love me when I'm 64, Much less when I'm 77? But you know what? She's right upstairs right now, Upstairs in this very house where I'm sitting, Still loving me, Still allowing me to adore her because I discovered something. I'm not the only person in the room to which I have only this to say, So old, So soon, So smart, So late, But better late than never. And thank you for sharing that. Yeah, It's not a question that many people ask me. So good job. You're a good interviewer who dare to ask a question like that. I want to ask you, What final words of advice do you have for listeners that can relate to so much of what you shared today? The answer to that question comes right out of conversations with God and tags onto what we have just this minute been discussing with you. Just this minute been discussing, I asked God, What does it take to make life work? Okay, What am I missing here? And she said to me, I can remember hearing that sound of that voiceless voice in my mind. It was kind of chuckling at that point. It's not a derisive chuckle like insulting, The kind of chuckle that you would maybe experience if a three-year-old person said, How many stars are in the sky? And you just might chuckle at the purity of the innocence of the question. Such a sweet, Sweet mind to ask the question. So I heard her chuckle. She said, Neil, Neil, It's really very simple. You think your life is about you and your life has nothing to do with you. It's about everyone whose life you touch and the way in which you touch it. But when you discover that secret, By the great miracle of life itself, You will discover that life in the largest sense is about you because it brings you without effort. Everything you thought you had to yearn and seek and strive and search for prior to now. So always remember that your life is not about you. It's about everyone whose life you touch and the way in which you touch it. Because guess what, Neil? There's only one of us. I know you think you are not that other person and you're not that person and you're not even me, But Neil, Listen to me carefully. There's only one of us. So what you do for another, You do do for yourself and what you fail to do for another, You fail to do for yourself. But when you understand this and begin to act on that understanding, You will have created the miracle for which you've been searching and the answer that you've been seeking all of your life. Well, Not to forgive me, I cried my own stuff. Incredible, Such powerful words to live by. Thank you. Thank you. Thank God, They're not even mine. I'm not gonna sit here and try to pretend for 10 seconds that those are words that came from me. But did I have a conversation with God? Yes, I did. And we are so blessed by your sharing. So thank you for being here and for all the work that you do. And we are all having conversations with God. My final words, So no one thinks that I imagine myself to be something different from everyone else. God is talking to all of us all the time. We're simply calling it something else. Women's intuition, A stroke of genius, An epiphany, A sudden brilliant idea. But God is talking to all of us all the time. Thank you for that powerful reminder. Neil, Where can people go? I think nealdonaldwalsh. Com, Is that the best place for people to? If people wanna stay connected, I've found an easier way for them to do it because they think of me as the conversations with God in person. So we've created CWG, Which of course means conversations with God. If created cwgconnect. Com. If people go to cwgconnect. Com, They can stay connected with me. There's a column there called Ask Neil. I'm on that platform three times a day. There is a slew of other resources there as well. Videos, Audios, Or written material that people can access if they want to stay connected with the energy that they're experiencing right now. Cwgconnect. Com. And thank you for the kindness of asking. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for joining me on The Soul Collective. It is my deepest pleasure and most divine honor to co-create with all of you. I know I learned so much in this episode and I hope you did as well. One of the things that I love most in the world is connecting with all of you and hearing your feedback. So please leave me a comment and share what your biggest takeaway was from this collective share. Also, If you haven't subscribed or reviewed the podcast, Please do so. Your feedback helps the show so, So much and we're able to bring on even more amazing guests. Just a reminder that our journeys are not meant to be linear and therefore it's easy to forget how far we've come, What we've healed from and the massive shifts and expansion which has taken place. It is the small steps done consistently which creates big change over time. So keep shining your light, Trusting, Showing up and being you. I'm sending you so, So much love and gratitude and I look forward to connecting with you next time.

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